AngusJimiKeith

Well then. I'll reinstall.

Don't worry too much about it. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only one who's complained

Here you go: Pretty sure it's the contrast at this point.

When I get a chance, I will. I think the issue is just the contrast between the dark atmosphere and the light ground, now that I think about it, though.

Had to cut antialiasing to 2x and go to half res textures to get my framerate back...worth it. One suggestion, if it isn't too late. The ground on Eve is bright. Really bright. Hurt my eyes bright. It wasn't that bad before, so I'm guessing it has to do with the new atmosphere. Can the ground be darkened a little bit?

I've passed up on many environmental packs because "laptop therefore lag"...but this is just too awesome to not give a try!

I want that Delta! Looks great so far!

Ahahaha. Well then. That isn't happening without a plugin. I know the KSO fuel tank does it but I don't know if there's a plugin involved there or not... Looks like it'll have to just be a normal tank, then.

After a weekend away from this, doing real-world aerospacey things (Read as: "getting a weather balloon stuck at the top of a 120ft tall tree"), I got a chance to work on it again. And I decided to throw out my old tank and start over. I wasn't happy with how it was coming along, and I came up with a new concept: I don't want to rely on a plugin to fix the "expanding" bug, so I needed an extra module...and I thought of decouplers. You can't really attach an engine to these, so after it's empty, it's dead weight! Might as well make it a drop tank! I feel totally outgunned bu some of the better modders on here, but I'm having fun and learning new things, which is the whole point, right?

Totally fair! Can't accurately make what you can't see... 64% makes the CCB *slighty* less than the 2.5m of stock parts (2.44m), so a rescale to 2.5m for Kerbal-sizing seems best. The Centaur wouldn't really fit into any kerbalized standard size, though. I'd just as soon scale it to 64% exactly or fly the thing full scale!

Update #2: I've added the framework to hold the tanks together. The vertical band is a 5cmx5cm square extruded along a spline that looped around the tank. After the extrusion, I only had to weld the ends together. The horizontal bands are cylinders, positioned across the center of each tank. Next up: getting the tri count down! This may involve redoing the extrusion, as it's the worst offender right now. Following that is UV mapping, which I'm just as bad at as the texturing itself.

Well, after some in-head formulation, here's the beginnings of my tank! The top, spherical tank will contain LF, the two pills contain Oxidizer and Monoprop. Very simple right now, just primitives in 3dsMax. One sphere, two capsules. .4m diameter, so a little narrower than the probe parts, and 1.4m tall. Next up, I'll add a "framework" around the tanks to hold them all together. For the texture, the frame will be more or less the same grey used on the stock radial Monoprop tanks. The tanks themselves, though, will have some sort of insulation around them. Not sure what yet, but Foil MLI is a pretty strong contender. Textures are my weak spot, though, and I'm hoping to pick up some knowledge here!

DEC for Atlas V is still being designed. The last I heard (6 months ago) was that Critical Design Review is set for sometime this spring. Until then, you're unlikely to find any official drawings, much less pictures. I'd guess it's pretty similar to the old DEC. Atlas V/DEC isn't scheduled to fly until 2016 at the earliest, so it may be a while before we see any actual hardware. EDIT: I (sort of) lied. Bottom of this article has a concept image. Not a great picture, but it's something. http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/01/dream-chasers-ksc-vision-2016-debut/

Fair enough. And who knows what'll happen with the switch to RL-10C? At the very least, there will be one DEC flight, too, so we'll see what happens with that. (DreamChaser test flight in 2016. They already signed the launch contract and bought the rocket.)

That's pretty much the definition of a concern for man-rating. That said, it was determined that a non-fully-deployed nozzle actually would not trigger an (immediate) abort. The mission would be compromised, but Orion and crew could reach a stable orbit and reenter from there. And that's all now moot, because there's a pretty good chance SLS won't fly manned with the ICPS. (Only 2 ICPS ordered, strong possiblity of an SLS cargo flight after the first test, manned flight would be is third.) However, back on topic: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=2574.0 Nope, Atlas V doesn't have an extendable nozzle. Older Centaurs did, but the AV Single Engine Centaur does not. Still hasn't flown a DEC, so not sure on that yet. Even if you don't trust forum posts (I wouldn't blame you), the linked pictures pretty clearly show a fixed extension on the AV Centaur and deployable ones on the Atlas II Centaur.

Nevermind, I (stupidly) based that statement on old data. Supposedly, the extendible nozzle was going to be removed from the SLS icps stage for man-rating reasons, but that idea appears to have been dropped. Oops :/

Interesting. I'd never even seen reference to extendable nozzles on Atlas V. That's going to be a problem in the man-rating process....

Ah, there is an extension on the A-4. As far as I'm aware, though, it's fixed, where on delta, it deploys in flight. Is that what you mean? Think I just misunderstood you.

Centaur doesn't have extendible nozzles, only Delta Cyro Second Stage does. (Different RL-10 versions)

It's not ESA's SM, it's NASA's. ESA is just the contractor. NASA is providing the engine. It will be installed after it is shipped to KSC. http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30427.630 Every design reference I've seen for Orion has a converted OMS used as OME, including the ATV SM. Perhaps that's why Aerojet sources aren't saying anything: NASA already has the OMS engines from shuttle, it won't need new ones for a while. http://www.rocket.com/orion-main-engine...

The service module version of ATV will have an AJ-10, just like the original Orion SM (It is renamed the "OME," just like shuttle's AJ-10s were the "OMS"). The Delta second stage above will also be the upper stage for the first few SLS flights. reference: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/01/orions-atv-deal-esa-astro-em-2-mission/

I can confirm this. It doesn't like Monopropellent fueled engines OR Xenon fueled (Ion) engines anymore. There was I line in the .23.5 changelog that stated Squad tweaked fuel flow for Monoprop and Xenon, that's probably the culprit.

A few that work and I haven't seen listed: -Nothke's 6S Service Compartments -Simple Part Organizer (though it's unmaintained...) -Albert VDS' Hullcam VDS

^Does PartCatalog go by what subfolder the parts are in in GameData? If so, the new parts are in NASAmission, not Squad.

KSO/Kerbin Mini Shuttle is dependent on Firespitter, and that works, so at least the plugin still works. Can't say for the rest of the pack. EDIT: Firespitter's been updated officially.